Kapitel 32: The Dragon, Chapter 05: Into the Mind
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and works; all other characters and worlds belong to their respective owners. I'm just playing with them.
Betad by Mike God of Lore, Priapus, Marethyu, Malcolm Tent, Beans
The Guild of Gamers: The Dragon
Chapter 05: Into the Mind
– Zatanna Zatara –
"Io, you don't think the fact that you used to be human is important?" Zatanna asked, making Io blink and tilt his head.
"No, why would it be?" Io asked, seemingly genuinely confused, as Megan giggled. "The weak, scaleless part of my past is best forgotten. I didn't even have a breath attack."
Zatanna sighed, rubbing her forehead in bemusement.
"If someone is running around turning people into Dragons, don't you think that's something that the League needs to know about?" Zatanna tried, but Io just 'shrugged' as best he could in his 'true' form.
"I was not from this world. He took the soul from one world, the body from another and sent me here. What could the League do about such a man?" Io asked, making her tilt her head in acknowledgement.
"What was your name before you became Io?" Megan asked, and Io paused.
"Irrelevant," Io replied, making Megan sigh.
"You don't know, do you?" Megan asked, making Io grumble. "Did you have a family?"
Io didn't respond, but he clearly looked frustrated. She could almost see him trying to search his memories, but it clearly wasn't working.
"Io, I know you prefer your new form, but don't you think it's important that you have all your memories?" Megan asked, stroking his scales as he grumbled.
"I could use a spell to try and clear up your memories," Zatanna offered, watching him as he paused in indecision. "It's possible your human memories have been buried under all those draconic instincts. I imagine whatever Tala was doing didn't help. Maybe we can even find out how you ended up in Tala's hands in the first place.
"I can help as well. I am a telepath, after all. I try to stay out of people's memories, but with your permission, I could try to find yours," Megan offered. Zatanna hid her annoyance at Megan's casual offer.
"Hm," Io finally responded, grunting as he looked around. "Very well. Both of you shall do it. Then we can all agree that being a dragon is better than whoever I was before and leave this nonsense behind."
Ah, he was just agreeing to prove he was right. It was good to know his ego was so consistent. It was actually kinda charming.
Sitting down on the bed, she gestured for him to lay with his head in her lap, watching Megan move to sit next to her. A small part of her said that she should bring her father, or Martian Manhunter, in on this to help, but she silenced it as she started her spell.
She felt Megan reach out and enter Io's mind, with Io welcoming them inside. She wondered why he was so trusting after his mind had been muddled before, but then the answer hit her like a truck, and she had to hide her giggle. He was sure he was stronger than them, that his psionics would defend him from any attempt to alter or control his mind.
She pushed her mind forward, entering his memories herself as she sensed Megan's presence. The best way to try and find his human memories would be to work backwards, and as they guided his mind, she watched the attack on Themyscira from his perspective.
She felt his rage and panic as Aresia commanded him like a weapon and heard Circe's enchantment overwhelming his mind. His rage at the trio who used him was all too fresh, and she could feel it affecting her as her own anger grew.
As the attack continued, she felt his annoyance at Kara as she refused to stay down. Kara was actually hitting hard enough to hurt him, even in his stronger form. He was rooting for them to win, raging against his commands. It was why they had survived.
The first sign of the human mind came from seeing her, oddly enough. Her cheeks darkened as she felt Io admiring her fishnet-clad legs. Io had found her attractive. She felt Megan's amusement and forced the memory to move on. Watching as they freed Io, feeling his panic and fear as his power began to wane as they broke the collar.
Going back earlier, they watched Aresia and Circe sneak into Tala's lair, stealing Io for their own ends. She felt his fury at them calling him a pet, the way he wanted to devour them both for even daring to try to use him. If it hadn't been for the chains, he'd have killed them both in an instant. She saw a flash of Gorilla Grodd being ripped apart after he got too close. Ah, so that was why nobody had seen the ape villain. He was inside Io's stomach.
Again, they moved earlier, and Zatanna watched carefully as Tala cast spell after spell upon Io, treating him with a strange, almost motherly tenderness. Io's response was rage, of course, too prideful to accept being bound, but Tala would try to soothe him, claiming he wasn't ready and that she was doing this for his own good.
She tried to identify the spells, but beyond recognising some of them as temporal magic, she had little to work with. At the very least, she memorised the words Tala used so her father could try to identify them.
Still, they moved further backwards. Things got very blurry as they tried following his memories into the time before he was put into his new body. Despite her annoyance at Megan joining them, she knew that this wouldn't have been possible without both of them as they tried to break through the unnatural fog over his mind.
For a moment, they saw a teenage boy walking through a busy street, playing on his phone. His features were blurred beyond recognition, but she watched as a handsome man with black hair and burning red eyes walked up to him.
"Hey, kid, you wanna be a dragon?"
The teenager's confused response was enough, and with a click of his fingers, the red-eyed man tore the boy's soul out.
It was magic on a scale she couldn't even imagine and done so easily, but they watched in a mixture of awe and horror as Io's old body rotted and faded to dust as the red-eyed man took the soul to another world.
Walking into a dragon's nest without a care, the red-eyed man looked over a series of blue dragon eggs before he picked one up and walked off with it; the mother dragon clearly ensorceled to not notice the intruder stealing one of her children. She hadn't even seen the man cast a spell as they watched him pull out the unborn dragon's soul and start to combine the two. Merging two souls of two different species with such casual ease.
Then, he shoved it back in and tossed the egg through a portal. Then, it appeared in the middle of a ritual circle, where Tala picked it up, cradling it.
No matter how they tried, they couldn't go back any further. The magic clouding his memories was beyond her skill to remove, and as they attempted to push further… something lashed out at them. She let out a scream of pain as she was forcibly ejected from Io's mind, seeing Megan clutch her head in pain as well.
Looks like the mystery man had left a few nasty surprises in Io's mind.
"See? Pointless," Io said smugly, sitting up as she chuckled despite the throb of pain. "A waste of time."
"Maybe not," Zatanna replied, smiling softly. "We got a good look at Tala's hideout, and we might be able to track it down. Plus, I memorised the spells she was using on you. Learning what she was trying to do with you will be important."
They also learnt that Io ate Grodd, but she didn't mention that part.
Io paused, and she half expected him to argue again, but he just nodded in reluctant agreement.
"A fair point. The sooner we find her, the sooner I can rip her apart for daring to try to control me," Io agreed, chest puffed out.
"Was it just me, or did Tala act way too affectionate with you?" Megan asked, making Zatanna nod in agreement. "Why did she call you her 'Beloved'?"
"I do not know. I remember little of my time with her," Io admitted. "Still, she had me from an egg?"
"We also learnt that you have two souls merged into one by that man. It's no wonder your instincts are all over the place," Zatanna continued with a frown on her face.
"Speaking of instincts… fishnets, huh?" Megan asked, her outfit switching to match Zatanna's hero costume, fishnets and all, as Zatanna felt her face grow increasingly red. "Good to know your interests."
"I am male, and Zatanna pulls them off well," Io admitted shamelessly.
"All the more reason to master a human form," Megan teased, but Io just grumbled again.
"Ugh, mortals. Who would find a boring human form more appealing than my glorious draconic body?" Io muttered, making her giggle as she reached out and stroked his scales, running her fingers across the smooth scales.
Wait, he'd had his head resting on her thighs the entire time they were in his mind. Was he enjoying that?
– Io –
With the girls going to tell the League everything they saw in my mind, I've been left with some free time. Hopefully, their report will help us track down Tala.
Naturally, the first thing I did upon getting some free time was take a swim. It's one of the few places where I can be my true size without causing trouble, and the waters here are rather nice.
There are no sunken treasures around here, but I expected as much. I'm only somewhat off the shore of 'Rhode Island'. I'm a long way from the desert here, but at least there's a nice beach.
Of course, the locals don't know this place is the hideout of 'The Team', so I have to be subtler than usual. It annoys me, but my Sapphire instincts agree that I shouldn't advertise my location to my enemies. I can be subtle.
Sometimes.
Returning to the base, I shake the water off my body and head inside.
"You have no self-control."
…who starts a conversation like that?
Turning to the grey-skinned girl, my eyes move to the red jewel on her forehead. My sapphires are better.
"I have as much self-control as I need," I counter, head held high.
"Lizard."
Before I can stop it, a growl leaves me as I grow slightly, ready to pounce, but her eyebrow just raises, her blank expression turning slightly smug for a moment.
"Demon."
Her eyes widen for a moment, fists clenching as she glares before she catches herself. I know what a demon smells like. She's as human as I am.
"That's my point. We both have too much power from our inhuman traits to have so little control. You nearly killed Kid Flash over a joke," Raven says, arms crossed as I scoff.
"Please, if that little love tap could kill him, he has no place pretending to be a hero," I counter, a disdainful look on my face. "I barely scratched him."
"He's still in the infirmary with four broken ribs. You are incredibly powerful, but that's all the more reason why you need to learn to control your temper," Raven says, her tone flat as she stares at me. "Come with me."
"Why?" I ask challengingly.
"I had to learn to control my… impulses. If you're going to be our teammate, I will help you learn to control yours," Raven says simply. I go to tell her to fuck off before I pause. Zatanna said Raven was one of the strongest members of this team, did she not?
– Zatanna Zatara –
The League was more than a little surprised to learn Io's true origin, and her father was going to try to identify the spells Tala used. The sooner they worked out what Tala was trying to do, the more prepared they'd be to deal with her.
Heading to Io's room, she looked around the treasure-filled bedroom in confusion. Where had Io gone? Well, she didn't think he'd just sit around and wait for her, but there weren't that many places to go in the base and he stood out too much to leave.
Focusing, she reached out with her magic to find his aura. Without them being in his lair, Io stood out a lot, and it wasn't hard for her to sense his presence. She tried to avoid this because of the way that his aura felt like it was pressing down on her.
It sent tingles across her entire body, but it did make him easy to track down as she followed it to… Raven's room?
She was sure he was in there, both his and Raven's aura within the room, draconic and demonic auras mixing as she knocked on the door.
It opened, glowing with Raven's magic, and Zatanna stepped inside.
"Zatanna," Raven greeted calmly, floating in the air with her legs crossed.
Io was hovering above Raven's bed, his body shimmering with his psionic powers. He had his eyes closed, and she realised what he was doing.
"I wasn't expecting to find Io here," Zatanna said, keeping her voice quiet.
"His lack of control is a liability. I am trying to teach him how to centre himself," Raven explained simply. "It is going slowly."
"Because I don't need to centre myself," Io argued, opening his eyes as Raven sighed.
"As you can see, his arrogance is a roadblock in improving his self-control," Raven continued, her tone blank as Io scoffed. "Instead, we moved on to practising the fine control of his telekinesis. I'm better at it than him."
"For now," Io growled, but Raven just smirked slightly.
"And likely forever, given your ego problems," Raven retorted, Io growling again. Despite his clear offence at her words, he didn't look like he was about to attack. "We will continue this later."
"Maybe," Io grumbled, landing on her bed as he stopped levitating himself. In an act of pettiness, he deliberately gripped her sheet as he jumped off the bed, pulling the quilt and bed cover away as Raven just watched with a slightly amused expression. Before he'd even started to walk, her bedding fixed itself with a demonstration of her own telekinetic control. "Come, I have spent enough time being lectured by the demoness. I wish to be elsewhere before I eat her."
"You're welcome to try," Raven replied simply, making Io grin. Did these two get along or not? She genuinely couldn't tell. "Same time tomorrow."
"Pah, as if I am so weak as to need daily meditation sessions," Io boasted.
"Was that a yes?" Raven asked, making Io pause.
"It's a maybe," Io finally conceded, walking out of her room with his head held high. "Why were you looking for me?"
"I was wondering if you'd like to watch a movie or something. I know it can be frustrating to be stuck on the base," Zatanna offered, making Io pause.
"Do any of these movies have dragons?" Io asked, making her giggle.
"I think we can find something," Zatanna agreed, amused at the predictable question.
– Princess Diana (Wonder Woman) –
"I do not understand. Why do the dragons not simply eat this Daenerys?" Io asked, making Diana pause before she chuckled as she opened the door, seeing Io resting on a bean bag with something playing on the screen in front of him. Zatanna was sitting next to him, a smile on her face.
A piece of popcorn floated toward him, getting snatched up by a long tongue as he grumbled.
"Mother of Dragons? She is no Tiamat," Io continued his complaints, grumbling as his tail swished behind him.
"You wanted dragons. I got you dragons," Zatanna giggled.
"The animated one was better, even if the dragons were pathetically weak. That tiny village should have been wiped out. Still, this is an acceptable show," Io agreed, head raised proudly. "I could slay those three with ease, though. What is it, Princess Diana? Why do you lurk in the background? Have you come to watch the dragon show as well?"
"Ah, no. I've already seen that one," Diana admitted easily. She supposed Zatanna had to find shows or movies where the dragon didn't get slain. "No, I've come to offer you something in trade for my lasso."
Io perked up, looking over at her with curiosity as she reached into the leather bag she had brought with her. Getting something worthy of trading a divine artefact for was not an easy feat, but fortunately, her mother had found the entire thing rather amusing and offered one of Themyscira's treasures to trade. She pulled out the pitch-black helm, seeing Io's eyes lock onto it.
"This is the Cap of Invisibility, or the Helm of Hades. It belonged to another God, Hades, the God of Death, but he lost it in one of his misguided plots against my home, and it has rested in our vaults ever since," Diana explained, watching Io hop off his beanbag and move over to her, the Helm levitating out of her hands as he rotated and examined it from every angle.
Then, he paused, looking extremely conflicted about something, before he sighed. In a flash of light, a golden lasso appeared in his mouth, and he shuffled over to her.
"An acceptable trade," Io finally said, clearly very reluctant to give up the lasso as he offered it up to her. As she tried to take it, he bit down on it for a moment before he sighed and let go. "I shall miss the centrepiece of my hoard, but a deal is a deal."
"Thank you, Io. I understand that giving up a piece of your treasure isn't easy," Diana agreed. The knowledge that there was a human soul merged within that body explained some things, but they didn't really know how that would affect things. "My mother will be pleased to know the Lasso of Truth is back within the hands of our people."
Io didn't respond, too busy examining the helm to pay attention to her. She didn't like the idea of Hades' helm leaving their vaults, but her mother had insisted once she heard of the Lasso being claimed. A divine artefact for a divine artefact.
"Speaking of my mother… she has requested your presence in Themyscira. Aresia's final judgement is soon, and I believe you wanted to be there for it," Diana said, getting his attention. Despite his new toy, his eyes narrowed, and his head snapped toward her at the mention of Aresia.
"Is my presence not going to be a problem? On my last visit, I slew many of your sisters," Io pointed out, and Diana nodded.
"You did, but no. I imagine many of my people will fear you, but you are a guest, invited by the Queen herself," Diana promised. "There will be no trouble from my people. I can promise you that."
They might not be happy to have Io return to the scene of his devastation, but it was her mother's decision.
"Very well. I said I'd leave the judgement of that child in the hands of your mother, and I will keep my word," Io agreed. "I have to place this within my lair, but I shall be ready when the time comes."
Aresia was far older than Io, but he wasn't wrong about her immaturity. She didn't know what her mother had planned for Aresia or Io, but she just hoped this would go smoothly.
– Io –
Returning to my lair, deep under the seafloor, I check on the place with a smile. Everything is perfectly in its rightful place, and it takes some rearranging to find a new place for the Helm. Still, I can't deny that leaving my lair undefended is something I dislike.
After I finish placing things where they should be, I smile to myself and nod as I teleport again. I need minions and servants, and I have an idea of where I can find some. During my travels, I spent some time in Egypt and saw some far lesser lizards in their fancy river.
Gathering up some of the crocodiles, I forcibly send them all back to my lair and return myself. They do not attack me, well aware of the difference in our power as I enjoy the time spent in my true form.
My lair is saturated with my power, and so shall these creatures be. Forcing my draconic magic into one of them, I watch with a satisfied smile as its scales turn blue and its body begins to shift. Its legs grow larger, standing on all fours like me, and a single golden horn grows on its nose. Its long face has shrunk slightly, though its neck has grown longer, but when I am done transforming the beast, it stands proudly, letting out a roar.
It pales in comparison to mine, of course, but it is a good start. Soon enough, I have a dozen of the creatures forcibly transformed and turned into my hoard's guardians. Distracted by my work, I almost don't feel the shimmer of magic at first, before I snap my head toward it, ready to attack the intruder.
But there is no intruder as I make my way toward the source. In the air, in a corner of my lair that I did not make stands a shimmering rift in the air. My head tilts, cautiously watching it in preparation for an invasion.
And yet, nothing comes. The rift seems to be one way, but why? Where did it come from?
A trap? My Sapphire senses demand we avoid it, an ambush likely waiting on the other side, and yet… I can smell treasure.
Tossing one of the lair guardians through it, I watch through the shimmering portal as the confused creature rolls across the ground before it gathers itself and looks around. Its command is to guard the lair, so it quickly jumps back through the portal without anything attacking it.
Treasure… or a trap? Maybe both. If it's a trap, I can kill those who attack me and take their stuff. Who got into my lair to make this in the first place? It wasn't here when I arrived. If someone knows where my lair is, I need to eat them.
With a roar of frustration, I charge through the portal, ready to slay anything that stands before me.
— Bonus Scene — Batman (Bruce Wayne)
"It is Cadmus property, Batman. Do you have any idea how many resources we spent on your new pet?" Waller asked bluntly, making him scowl.
It hadn't taken him long to discover the link between Tala and Cadmus. Nor did it take him long to work out why Waller wanted a dragon. Io was another weapon against the League. He was her insurance if the League stepped out of line.
"He is a sentient being; Io doesn't belong to anyone," Batman said bluntly. "Slavery is outlawed, in case you forgot."
"Human slavery is outlawed. The law is a little more blurry on the subject of extra-dimensional dragons," Waller replied simply. She was as shameless as always, head held high.
"I'm warning you, keep your little squad away from Io. He's a member of the Justice League now," Batman said, his signature scowl on his face. Not that it affected Waller, there were few people who were as self-assured as Amanda Waller, and there was little that she couldn't convince herself that she was doing for the 'right reasons'.
Waller said nothing, arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Waller replied. She knew he knew, but neither of them was going to budge. Too many villains had been mysteriously relocated. Waller had made another Suicide Squad. "If the League is harbouring government property, we will retrieve it accordingly."
Waller paused for a moment, a scowl crossing her face.
"Circe and Aresia weren't working on my orders. The attack on Themyscira was not authorised," Waller finally admitted. "And Tala was furious to learn that her… project was missing. She has gone rogue and taken more Cadmus property with her. She also murdered one of our top scientists on the way out."
"Another weapon?" Batman asked, and Waller just scoffed.
"Of course," Waller admitted without an ounce of shame. "And now Tala has it. If you should be worried about anyone, it should be her, not whatever squad you think I've made."
Batman simply gave her an extremely unamused look.
"What, no who, did she take?" Batman asked, but as always, Waller remained unrepentant and refused to answer. Still, she'd given him enough for him to work it out. Now, he just needed to find what Cadmus scientists had died recently and work out what they were working on.
Io was a liability despite his immense power. He was easily driven into a rage, and with multiple groups hunting him, it was only a matter of time until he was sent into another rampage.
AUTORENGEDANKEN 
DarkWolfShiro
DarkWolfShiro Author’s Note: Dragon remains the hardest fic for me to write. Shorter chapter because I just don’t really enjoy writing dragon as much as I do the others.
Written: 26/11/2024
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The Advance Chapters
Diamond: The Celestial Escalation Ch05, The Celestial Farmer Ch01, The Nightmare Ch15, The Unbound Ch04, The Vampire Ch13,
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Gold: The Origin Ch04, New Game Plus Ch09, The Warlord Ch18
Basic: Guide to Conquest Ch10, The Tamer Ch16
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